Beacon and call: Proximity-based tech fuels new Tennessee Aquarium educational program

Walking along a wooden pathway in the glass-enclosed penthouse of the Tennessee Aquarium's River Journey Building, Jason Provonsha's head is clearly in a different place than the other visitors.

The tall and bearded partner in local tech startup CloudBeacon isn't looking around at songbirds flitting overhead. His deliberate pace doesn't alter, even though the river otters -- a favorite of most guests -- are just around the corner, the roar of their exhibit's cascading waterfall a dominating presence in the background.

Instead, Provonsha's eyes are locked on the screen of his iPhone. Not because he's checking social media or texting a friend, but because he's on a digital scavenger hunt.

Caption/Description: Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 3/3/15. Jason Provonsha, a partner with CloudBeacon, demonstrates how his company's product will be used at the Tennessee Aquarium to send push notifications to visitors' cell phones and tablets.

Thom Benson, left, speaks to Jason Provonsha, a partner with CloudBeacon, about CloudBeacon's new technology will be utilized at the Tennessee Aquarium to send push notifications and information.

And just as the otters' Plexiglas enclosure comes into view around the bulky curve of a fake oak tree, he -- or rather his phone -- finds what he's looking for. After a buzz, a notification fills his screen:

"ANIMAL TRACKER ALERT -- You are almost in River Otter Falls. Start looking for mammals with webbed feet."

The automatic alert comes from a nearby beacon, a self-contained device the size of a cigarette lighter that uses a low-power Bluetooth signal to push information to smartphones and tablets. Provonsha's company, CloudBeacon, started 18 months ago with the goal of helping clients take advantage of beacon technology to send targeted information to customers.

When CloudBeacon approached aquarium staff about implementing beacons there, the two organizations began brainstorming ways to use the technology to engage guests more during their visit. The result of their collaboration is an educational game called High-Tech Animal Tracker -- the source of Provonsha's otter alert -- which goes live today via an update to the aquarium's smartphone app.

"[Beacons] create more of an interactive experience," Provonsha says, phone now at his side. "Without having to do anything, you're receiving content that is going to give you a deeper and richer experience than you would have just walking up and reading off the signs."

For Animal Tracker, 18 to 20 beacons have been placed near the entrances to the River Journey and Ocean Journey buildings, as well as the exhibits of more than a dozen species. When guests come within a predetermined distance of these "tagged" animals, they receive messages on their phones in the form of requests from a group of fictional wildlife biologists asking for help with field research.

When they approach the giant South American river turtle, for example, amateur trackers will receive a request from Dr. Ana Conda to describe the reptile's movement through the water. In Stingray Bay, Dr. Finn Skales will ask for help counting how many rays have burrowed under the sand.

"Hopefully, not only do they learn information about the animals, but they'll learn something more about their own abilities and interests and spark their curiosity," says aquarium learning specialist Thaddeus Taylor.

Right now, the program is one-sided; guests can receive the communiques, but they can't report their findings back to the scientists. Despite Animal Tracker's lack of interaction, Taylor says the goal is for guests to view animals in a more deliberate way and to draw attention to species that spend less time in the spotlight.

"We skipped over some of the obvious ones and chose ... to highlight some of our species that don't get as much attention," he says, offering up the Chinese big-headed turtle and Denison's barb as examples.

"These are animals that are harder to find in exhibits because they're smaller, so they may be overlooked by guests who are having sensory overload from all the animals there are to see."

The beacons have been placed far enough apart to avoid inundating guests with a nonstop barrage of notifications but close enough to avoid what Taylor calls "information deserts."

"We don't want to ... bombard them with fact-dumping," he says, laughing, but guests who visit every "tagged" exhibit in both buildings will receive a digital badge of completion and a special prize at the gift shop.

The staff at the aquarium and at CloudBeacon are adamant that using the beacons is entirely voluntary. In order to take part in Animal Tracker, guests must opt in to the program by enabling the proper settings on their phone. Materials explaining how to do this will be handed out at the entrance to the buildings.

"We're very aware of the creepiness factor in ... this [technology], and we're really interested in leading our clients through that process well," Provonsha says. "The consumer is ultimately in control of all this."

Animal Tracker will continue for the next six to eight weeks, roughly concurrent with the spring-break period of regional school systems.

Aquarium staff say they already are considering ways to integrate beacons into future events, such as a winter program teaching guests about migratory or hibernating behaviors. Future uses of beacons also could take advantage of the device's multimedia capabilities, such as sharing a video clip of animals feeding or a gallery of pictures taken by other guests at the same exhibit.

"Being able to see [those pictures] in a private setting that's not exposed to the world like it is with Facebook and other things like that makes it into a more intimate piece," says Justin Junda, CloudBeacon's founder.

As it stands, the Animal Tracker program will serve as a kind of proof-of-concept for beacons, which Junda describes as a technology that soon could be making inter-industry waves.

To date, beacons' most high-profile use has been for location-based marketing in stores, where strategically placed beacons can push information about discounts or new items when customers approach a designated display. If there's a special sale on Lucky Brand shoes at Macy's, for example, a beacon in the footwear section can push notification of price drop to customers on the spot instead waiting for them to check the website.

According to a February analysis on the impact of beacons, Business Insider reports that the technology will "directly influence" over $4 billion of retail sales this year. Next year, that impact is projected to be top $44 billion, according to the report.

"It's definitely the tip of the iceberg," Junda says.

Provonsha's belief in the promise of beacon technology is so staunch that, in February, he left his position as a senior vice president of sales at Chattanooga-based Coyote Logistics to join CloudBeacon. Now he's helping to advocate using beacons in applications in many situations, from visiting museums to dining to shopping for a home.

"We think it [beacon technology] is one of the biggest developments since Wi-Fi," he says. "Half of the Fortune 500 retail companies are testing beacons in some applications.

"It's just the excitement of getting in before it even launches as an industry."

Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.